


The Definition of a Monster

by thucyken



Category: Vassalord
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 19:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thucyken/pseuds/thucyken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A hunt before the manga series begins goes wrong, of course. Don't they always?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Definition of a Monster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Festive](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Festive).



Rayflo looked at the bed. It was neatly made up—sheets tucked under, hospital corners, pillows perfectly parallel to the headboard. Minear had learnt that from Cherry, no doubt. You could take a boy out of the orphanage, but you couldn't take the orphanage out of the boy, even after a hundred and forty-five years. Probably you could bounce a quarter off the bed.

But money wasn't what he wanted to be bouncing off the bed tonight.

He pulled the cover down and messed it up, piled the pillows into one giant messy stack and then arranged himself so he was leaning up against them.   
Wait—naked or not naked? He didn't want Cherry to just walk back out the door, which he might do if he was still pissed about Rayflo telling the neighbours that Cherry was recovering from a bad breakup and needed baked goods and sympathy more than anything else. Cherry had had to sneak in and out of the apartment for a month or risk being pulled aside by every single woman in the complex for a cup of tea and a chat about how he should really look for another girlfriend, get back on the horse, and maybe the perfect candidate was closer than he thought.

Rayflo smirked. That had been one of his more inspired pranks. But now he didn't want Cherry annoyed enough to leave. He wanted to lure him in. Shirtless, then, or ooh. Shirt open, pants slightly undone, like a portrait of lust personified.  
Cherry probably thought that being a walking sex god came naturally to Rayflo. Poor boy would never understand how much work it took. He undid the buttons on his red shirt and lay back against the white sheets, one hand behind his head, zipper temptingly undone.

Cherry didn't stand a chance.

He heard a knock at the door and tried to control his grin.

Cherry had his close-enough-for-horseshoes-and-hand-grenade's priest's outfit on, naturally. He loved the idea of being a priest. Maybe Rayflo shouldn't have left him at an orphanage run by nuns, but it wasn't like he'd had his pick of orphanages at the time. He'd never imagined it coming back to bite him in this way. Really, Cherry would be happiest if he could be a priest, but his straitlaced morality couldn't handle being designated God's representative on earth while also regularly sucking the blood (and other things) of a hideous, horrible monstrous v-a-m-p-i-r-e. He thought it would be blasphemous.

Rayflo had no problem with blasphemy. In fact, it made things kind of fun. But Cherry had made it clear that was a no-go area the time Rayflo tried to play priest and choirboy with him.

Cherry would cosplay a priest while he did the Vatican's dirty work, but that was all.

"Hello, Cherry," he drawled, looking as inviting as possible. (Pretty inviting, if he said so himself.)

"It's Charley," Cherry said stonefacedly.

"You haven't been by in a while. Feeling peckish?"

He could tell from the restrained hunger in Cherry's eyes that he was, but he   
gritted out a "No". The dear boy probably still thought he could keep a secret from Rayflo. Rayflo let him keep his illusions. They were adorable.

He wiggled his hips. "I bet I could change your mind about that," he purred.

"Pack your things. We've got to go."

"Go? Where? Vacation? Honeymoon? Are you taking me on a honeymoon?" Rayflo sat bolt upright. "I want to go to Paris. No, Vienna."

"We're going to Rumania."

"Not my first choice," Rayflo mused, "I am beginning to worry about your romantic side. It might possibly be a little twisted. But don't worry!" He waved a magnanimous arm."I can work with that."

Cherry's face twitched. "We're not going for fun," he ground out. "There's a nest of vampires in Rumania."

"And there aren't any Rumanian vampire slayers, so they had to order out," Rayflo said mock-innocently. "Aren't you tired of this yet, Cherry? It's been what, a hundred and thirty years? Why not try a new career? I think you would make an adorable veterinarian."

"It's not a career," Cherry said. "It's penance."

"Great penance. Just go wherever the Church tells you. Yes sir no sir three bags full sir."

"They didn't order me. I asked for this mission." Cherry paused. "They're pretending to be—pretending to be priests."

Oh dear. That was like pushing on every single one of Cherry's buttons at once. And not in the good way.

"There's a plane in an hour. Pack a bag. This might take me a while, and I'm going to need supplies on hand."

Seeing the set look on Cherry's face, Rayflo forbore from teasing him any more than was strictly and absolutely necessary.

*

As they disembarked—cargo hold again, one day Rayflo was going to have to break Cherry of that habit—Cherry said, "A local hunter will be meeting us. No use bumbling around when we can have local guidance."

"Holding up a sign saying VAMPIRE HUNTERS, PARTY OF TWO, I suppose," Rayflo muttered.

"Party of one. You're my plus one."

"Not the sort of party I like to go to. I bet that's him."

Beat-up leather jacket, beat-up leathery face, whiskers like facial hair was a rare commodity and he was saving every scrap he could get. And a wolfhound straining at the leash.

"Georg Vrykov?" Cherry asked.

"Charles J. Krishund."

The wolfhound's growl increased from a subterranean rumble to a full-out roar as it caught Rayflo's scent. Georg brought it to heel with an oak-hard arm, but didn't acknowledge his existence in any other way. Great. "Well, you kids have fun hunting vampires," Rayflo said brightly. "I think I'll explore a bit. You know, check out the town, see the sight. I heard it's a statue of a cow."

"You don't keep it locked up?" Georg asked Cherry.

The total ignorance treatment, then. Cherry's little playmates reacted this way when they knew about Rayflo, which is why generally he stayed far out of sight when Cherry was doing his big bad vampire hunter thing.

"Sometimes I'd like to," Cherry muttered, more to himself than to anyone else.

"No one said you had to bring me along," Rayflo reminded him.

"We can't hunt today," Georg said. "It's late. The sun will be going down and they'll be getting up. Tomorrow morning is a good time. I heard you were okay in the sunlight?"

A shadow crossed Cherry's face. "Fine," he said."We'll be staying at the closest hotel. You want me to call you?"

"No." Georg took a long breath of air, eyes narrowed against the dying light. "I'll find you."

*

Rayflo expected Cherry to be on him, teeth scrabbling, the moment the cheap pine wood to their hotel room swung closed. He hadn't eaten for about a week, after all, and the airport with all its tempting little delicacies on legs couldn't have been easy. But Cherry's self-control had always been disturbingly good, as if he enjoyed riding the edge of pain. That and the combination of priest plus vampire and a clearly disapproving fellow vampire hunter were likely to spur him into fasting a bit longer. Sure, it was fun watching Cherry tie himself up into knots, especially when he got to undo the knots slooooooowly later on, but too much gloom and doom did not a good time make.

He flopped onto the bed. Cherry stalked over to the desk and began setting up his computer and files. "Don't be noisy," he said without looking away from the screen.

"What price romance," Rayflo muttered. "What are you doing, Cherry?"

"It's Charley. I'm searching for any abandoned churches in the area. The last one they were using was burned out by the first bunch of vampire hunters who hunted them."

"Sounds boring."

"Then don't pay attention."

Rayflo rolled over and looked up at the stained ceiling. Undoing Cherry's knots afterwards better be absolutely fantastic.

*

True to his word, Georg knocked on the door bright and early in the morning, and sniffed at Rayflo lying sprawled on the bed. Charley tried not to sigh. Leave it to Master to be as obnoxious as possible. He'd probably run up every room charge he could think of. Not that their hole in the wall hotel was likely to have the two-hundred dollar massage service Master had used last time he was pissed and in a hotel room charged to Charley's credit card.

"We'll try the church on the east side of town," Georg said. "Abandoned now, and they moved the Host and the tabernacle already, so the fangs would have no problem settling in."

Charley nodded. "Sacra!" he called.

The cyborg dog whirred forward. "What the hell is that?" Georg said.

"My dog," Charley said expressionlessly.

"Hell kind of dog, did you buy him from Ford? It's not natural. Wolfhound, that'll track vampires down." Georg tugged on the leash holding his dog. It growled in response.

"Sacra has been useful on many previous missions," Charley said, skipping over Georg's real complaint._It's not natural._

Nothing was or had been natural for more years than he could remember.

"Leave it behind," Georg ordered. "Last thing I need is a cyborg dog busting a motor and alerting all the vampires." He wheeled around and started walking, clearly expecting Charles to follow him.

Sacra whined. "Sorry, boy," Charley said, dropping an apologetic hand to the dog's head. "Scan for vampires in other areas. We don't want to miss one who's out on a milk run."

"Have fun!" Master called blithely. "Bring back a souvenir!"

Charley rolled his eyes and shut the door.

The church was old and beat-up and brought back memories that Charley had done his best to forget. He went in first—he was more likely to survive a direct hit than Georg, who might look like he was composed entirely of wire and attitude but was still mortal for all of that. The vampires were doing a good job hiding, but sobs and ragged breathing came from the wreck of what used to be the altar.

"Don't worry," Charley said quietly, "we're here to help. Just tell us where they are."

The small girl- if it was a girl underneath all that dirt, she must have been there for a while- looked up uncomprehendingly, one leg tied to the altar, like a goat staked out in the back yard. Too shocked to think straight, Charley decided. He crouched down, tried to look less frightening. "Where's the man who hurt you?" Charley said.

After an agonizingly long moment, she raised a hand and pointed behind her. Charley whirled to warn Georg, and the stake went through his shoulder, rough and splintered.

*

"Do you know what they say about you behind your back? They say, 'Let them take each other out. Less work for us. Use fire to fight fire and monsters to fight monsters.' "

"I'm not a monster," Cherry gritted out.

"You don't belong in the Church. Not even your ashes."

Georg thoughtfully placed the point of another stake at his left shoulder. He tilted his head and moved it a few inches to the left, then sank it home. Charley grunted, but didn't let anything else show in his face.

"I'm not a monster," he repeated.

The girl rocked back and forth on her heels, huddled as far away in the corner as she could get.

"Were there even any vampires here?"

"Sure," Georg said. "They were about to snack on that girl when I arrived. Only two of them, but mean as a pair of cornered snakes. Now some people think two on one is harder to fight, but not if they care about each other. As long as you take out one of them, the other generally gets so mad they can't see straight. Near as goddamn ran right onto my stake. If it'd been human it might have been sweet."

There was one thing that Charley couldn't get straight in his head. He felt blood on his teeth when he spoke. "Why involve the girl?"

"She was already involved. Wasn't for me she'd have been vampire kibble already. If I'd been five minutes slower coming through the door? Vampire kibble. You think the world cares that she's still alive? It doesn't. I saved her, and I can kill her, and nothing will be anything different. I see you're not asking me why I'm doing this," he added, changing tack. He'd shoved swords through Charley's upper arms and now he bent and began sawing at the lower robotic part of his right arm.

"I know why," Charley said. "You think you're the first vampire hunter to have doubts? But the Vatican has always-"

"The Vatican doesn't know what's good for it," Georg said. "They've forgotten what their mission is. It's to destroy foul creatures like you and safeguard humanity. You think you can be a sheepdog? You're a wolf, and one day you'll turn."

"I won't. I only drink from one person. A vampire. I'm not hurting anyone."

"And who does he drink from? Do you think about that? Think about who he's biting when you're off pretending to be a knight?"

Charley felt the connection to his right arm snap. It opened and closed spasmodically, attached by a few thin wires. He was right-handed: even if he got free now he'd have a harder time taking Georg out.

"The blood you drink is the blood of the innocents," Georg concluded. "Just one step removed."

"It's different," Charley said.

He might as well have been talking to the air, and maybe he had been, trying to explain to the world, to himself, why he was the way he was. Georg certainly wasn't listening.

"Do you know why the legend says that vampires can't see their own reflection?" Charley was splayed out on the ground in front of the altar, six stakes through shoulders, arms, and upper thighs. Georg trailed one more down Charley's body meditatively, like an artist considering what finishing touch to add to his canvas. "It's because they don't really see what they've become. They're blind to their own hideousness. If they saw the marks of their guilt blooming on their souls, they would run into the morning sun."

He leaned on the sword. Charley let out a choke of pain. "I'm going to show you how much of a monster you are."

Georg removed one of the six stakes embedded in Charley's body and stuck a metal funnel in the hole. "You've lost some blood already," he said, repeating the process, "and with this you're looking at near-complete blood loss within a few hours. You'll be able to move with the stakes out, even with the chain on. As you'll find out it is exactly long enough to let you get close to your little friend." He jerked his head at the girl, still tied to the altar by the wiry rope.

"I won't do it," Charley whispered.

"Trust me," Georg said. "You will."

He twisted the last funnel in and stood back. "You won't be able to take those   
all out with your arms like that," he pointed out. "And our guest isn't going anywhere." Charley closed his eyes, but could hear the girl's rapid, terrified breathing from a few feet away.

Georg strolled down to an old pew in the back of the church. After a moment, Charley heard him open his leather satchel and toss a bloody steak to his wolfhound.

His mouth began watering in spite of himself.

Blood, layers and layers of it, musty as old lace, over every inch of this church. The vampires hadn't been neat with their meals and now the ghosts of atrocities past tickled the back of his throat. The girl breathed faster.  
When he got hungry, really hungry, he couldn't think. If he left it long enough, he'd drain her dry when his resolve failed. No hope of rescue- Master was probably racking up room service right now and anyway, it was day out. Maybe he could drink just a little- just a little!- just enough to get by, to get some strength back. In that case he should do it as soon as possible: the sooner, the more chance he'd retain enough reason not to forget why he shouldn't just keep on drinking…

He inched towards her, trying to think of something reassuring to say. "So fast," Georg said. "I thought you'd cling to your ideals for a while at least."

Charley tried his best to ignore him. He could do this.

The girl's throat was slim and dirty and represented the greatest sin he had never allowed himself to commit. "There, there," he whispered. "It's going to be alright."

She looked up at him. "Are you a reverend?" she said. "Could you say a prayer for my friends?"

The pile of bodies crumpled in the corner. He pushed her away. He couldn't do it. It was the ultimate irony. He'd kill her because he couldn't bear to hurt her.

"Can't get it up?" Georg inquired. "You'll change your mind soon enough."

Charley felt himself beginning to go away. That was the best thing to do for now. Find somewhere quiet in his head and stay there so he couldn't see what he'd end up doing. What he'd end up being.

*

Georg leaned forward. Finally, they were getting somewhere.

Three hours of torture and the thing kept pretending. He'd heard about it and its feats, of course. Charles Krishund was a byword in his profession. Young hunters looked up to him, not realizing what a monster he was. He destroyed the holiness of their mission, made a hollow mockery out of it.

"Well, well," an amused voice said behind him. "Isn't this positively Biblical."  
Krishund's vampire lover stepped up. He glanced languidly around the destroyed church, the overturned pews, and his partner, blood trickling from the funnels set into his flesh. Was there a flash of something cold in his eyes? "Love what you've done with the place," he commented.

"You- it's daylight, how did you-" Georg choked out.

"What a very stereotypical line. I spent some time here, many years ago. A war. Don't remember which one. They're hard to keep straight."

At the end of his endurance, Krishund made a scrabbling move towards the girl.   
The vampire tsked and was next to him in the next instant, holding his head back gently. "They dug tunnels during the occupation- didn't want to be seen. Figured if I poked around I could find one or two."

The splintered remains of a torch still decorated the wall. The vampire reached back casually and pricked a finger on it, the other hand still holding Krishund back. Familiars of some kind appeared from the blood drops. "Take the girl somewhere safe," the vampire ordered. They silently scooped her up and disappeared out the front door.

"And now for you," the vampire said pleasantly. He dropped a kiss on Krishund's head in some horrible parody of affection, snapping the chain that bound him.

"No!"

Charley found the strength to speak from somewhere.

"I'm sorry, Cherry," Master said. His eyes were cold. "I'm going to have to kill him."

"You can't."

"Oh, I really can," he said, a dangerous tone in his voice.

"No. He's not yours. He's mine."

"Cherry, you can't think straight right now. You kill him and I'll have to listen to you cry about it for the next hundred years."

Charley stumbled away, towards Georg. The vampire hunter looked for his wolfhound, but the dog was over at the pile of corpses, sniffing around.   
Charley could barely move. His strength was reduced to that of a human's, his right arm was useless. But he was blazingly angry and hungry, so hungry that every breath brought the scent of blood to his tongue. Georg tried to pull out a crossbow but Charley knocked it away, and after exchanging blows he had his good arm around the old man, pinning him from behind.

Georg closed his eyes. "Go on," he said. "Kill me, you freak. That's all you monsters live for."

And he could and it would be easy and so delicious. Not like the girl- here was a guilty one, and killing him would do some much good.

"Not because I'm a vampire," he murmured to himself. "Because you're a monster."

"You tell yourself whatever you want," Georg said. "I know the truth. You're after blood."

Yes, blood. Charley dipped his head and sniffed at Georg's neck, the world narrowing down to hunger and that delicious scent.

"Cherry," Master said coaxingly, "you don't really want his blood, do you? You don't know where it's been." He slashed a sharp thumbnail across his wrist. "Mm, smells like home cooking," he said. "Come on. I don't want you thinking about anyone's blood other than mine."

The familiar scent wafted over him, bringing him back from that dangerous dead zone of unfeeling. "Not till I've dealt with him," Charley growled.

"Cherry, no." Master raised a hand, but dropped it. Maybe he saw something in Charley's face.

"My fight. My rules. My choice," he said. He sniffed close at Georg's neck, then closed his hands around it and began squeezing. "You know," he said conversationally, "I may be a vampire, but I wouldn't drink your blood if I was dying for it. Consider that I beat you the human way."

Georg went limp far too soon and Charley dropped him. He was still breathing. They could take him to the Vatican's authorities later. "Master," he said.

Rayflo was there in a moment, blurring the space between them with his speed.

"Don't worry, Cherry," he said. "I won't be playing hard to get today."

Charley licked the wound on Master's arm. It was already beginning to heal. He scraped it open again with his teeth. "How did you know?" he asked.

"Your dog actually came in handy for once. It scanned and found no vampires in the area. Your vampire hunter would have known if they'd moved out, so he must have been planning something.

"He was right, you know. I am a monster," Charley said.

"Everyone's some kind of monster some of the time, Cherry," Master said. Moving on from the arm wound, Charley began to unbutton Master's shirt, roughly tugging his collar open further so he could nip at his throat.

Master's hands came around and gripped Charley, hard and familiar. "You're a monster to him. But you're a hero to that girl."

"And to you?" Charley said, asking for something. Even he wasn't sure what.

"You're my Cherry," Master said. "It's not the best place for a dinner date, but I think we'll make do."

Charley tackled him to the rough floor of the church, hands sliding inside his pants.

Rayflo closed his eyes as Cherry bent over him. No bed, no candles, no carefully-arranged tableau. But this moment now, when his Chris turned to him for comfort and love, was enough.


End file.
